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  • Political Order and Political Decay

  • From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy
  • By: Francis Fukuyama
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
  • Length: 24 hrs and 1 min
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (274 ratings)
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Political Order and Political Decay

By: Francis Fukuyama
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
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Editor reviews

Editors Select, September 2014 - I acquired Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order for Audible and asked for Jonathan Davis to be cast as the narrator, and it was a great combination. So, I’m biased, but Political Order and Political Decay has been my most-awaited nonfiction book for a while. It picks up where the previous book left off (at the Industrial Revolution), and unspools the history of politics until the present day. Francis Fukuyama, as narrated by Jonathan Davis, gives readers a very smart, very modern way of looking at the entire arc of world events, and tries to answer the ambitious question: 'Why does humanity even need politics?!' —Christina, Audible Editor

Summary

The second volume of the best-selling landmark work on the history of the modern state. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, David Gress called Francis Fukuyama's Origins of Political Order "magisterial in its learning and admirably immodest in its ambition." In the New York Times Book Review, Michael Lind described the book as "a major achievement by one of the leading public intellectuals of our time." And in the Washington Post, Gerard DeGrott exclaimed "this is a book that will be remembered. Bring on volume two." Volume two is finally here, completing the most important work of political thought in at least a generation. Taking up the essential question of how societies develop strong, impersonal, and accountable political institutions, Fukuyama follows the story from the French Revolution to the so-called Arab Spring and the deep dysfunctions of contemporary American politics. He examines the effects of corruption on governance, and why some societies have been successful at rooting it out. He explores the different legacies of colonialism in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and offers a clear-eyed account of why some regions have thrived and developed more quickly than others. And he boldly reckons with the future of democracy in the face of a rising global middle class and entrenched political paralysis in the West. A sweeping, masterful account of the struggle to create a well-functioning modern state, Political Order and Political Decay is destined to be a classic.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2014 Francis Fukuyama (P)2014 Audible Inc.

What listeners say about Political Order and Political Decay

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The superior entry of the two volumes

The second volume of Fukuyama's update of Huntington's classic Political Order in changing societies turns out to be the superior entry to its predecessor, though it is not without its faults.
The first part of the book is overly detailed and at times repetitive, often with the main point buried under excessive elaboration, and as such, much may be lost in the process of "getting to Denmark" or rather, getting through the verbiage.
However, that is the only major flaw. If one perseveres, one finds one of the strongest analyses of the origins of rule of law, the cultural foundations of the Chinese state, an examination of progressive era US politics, the ongoing decay in modern US politics, and analyses of contemporary China and India.
On this basis, Fukuyama's work has become invaluable in the modern world of political science, and helps one understand the cultural differences that result in different forms of the modern state.
In some ways something of an intellectual atonement for his rather triumphalist argument that Liberal Democracy represents the End of History.
Rather, this work is an examination that history flows in an endless myriad of directions, and one should get to grips with understanding them, and this book provides a compelling guide.
The narration by Jonathan Davis can be slightly monotone at times, but otherwise is clear and to the point.

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9 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Thought provoking read

Another powerful book by this author. This is neither an easy listening novel nor a highly referenced text book but covers the topic at an altitude where the reader can appraise the macro picture yet with some interesting specifics.

I'd recommend it if you like his past works.

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8 people found this helpful

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  • LC
  • 11-05-19

Fascinating insight into political development and decay

This book is well structured and gives insight into mechanisms of political development and political decay of the countries and nations around the world throughout history. This gives valuable insight into where we are now, direction of travel and some of the main challenges of preventing or controlling decay and encouraging development.

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4 people found this helpful

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Succint and ambitious

Very clear and broad in scope, recommendable as overview and introduction.

great perspective and thought provoling

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3 people found this helpful

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Very informative and interesting.

One small issue. At one point in the last chapter it says "North Korea" when it should say "South Korea".

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1 person found this helpful

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Epic

Long and detailed but a great analysis and summary of the current political environments around the world and the issues they face.

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Depressing.

I have two books by Francis Fukuyama. I find this, his second of his books on Political Order, depressing. It’s a catalogue of appalling human behaviour by individuals, factions, companies and Governments. There is little here to shed a guiding light on the way forward for society. It meanders from example to example without any clear positive lesson for the future.

It may have some limited place as an educational text book but other than learning how corrupt all human society is, I’m not sure what else it contains.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Makes the small print interesting!

This book conveys a broad understanding of how political systems function, and why they break down.
It is also put across engagingly and interestingly and is well worth a listen.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating

Everyone interested in politics should hear this book! A comprehensive look at how political systems evolved around the world and what insights we gain from understanding this

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    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliantly dispassionate

This is the second volume in a two-volume set in which Fukuyama analyses the development of political institutions throughout history. The earlier volume looked at such development up to the Industrial Revolution, and that is the point at which this second volume picks up, bringing us right up to 2014 when this volume was published. It isn’t, however, necessary to have listened to the first volume for this volume to be worthwhile.

This is, by Fukuyama’s own confession, a “backwards-looking” book; it diagnoses the problems of political decay rather than attempting to offer solutions to complex problems.

And this is one of the book’s great strengths. Although Fukuyama clearly has his own views and his own sympathies and antipathies toward particular political systems, he isn’t opinionated about it. He doesn’t see either free-market capitalism or communism as some sort of panacea, or regard either liberal democracy or authoritarianism as entirely good or entirely bad. This dispassionate approach to political systems invests the work with a real authority.

Though an academic work, it is well-paced and interesting. The writing, although it necessarily uses much technical language, is straightforward and ‘lay’; it never descends into the academic mumbo-jumbo that characterizes much contemporary ‘soft science’ (e.g., social science) literature.

Narration

Jonathan Davis does achieve the most important thing in narration, which is to be clear; I seldom had to rewind to catch what he had said (though I often did in order to follow Fukuyama’s argument).

However, his pronunciation of the many foreign terms and phrases in this book is frequently annoying. He seems to be OK with Spanish and Italian, but he generally makes a hash of anything in French or German. And even when narrating in English, he often puts completely the wrong emphasis on a sentence, and sometimes pauses inappropriately.

In spite of these faults, for its content this an audiobook well worth engaging with for anybody interested in how political institutions develop and how they decay. Also, much has happened in the seven years since its publication, and perhaps an updated version wouldn’t be amiss.

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